To Wish or Not to Wish

by Mindy Klasky

  And that was when it struck me: Timothy was an artist. Just like I was, like Shawn. He created something out of practically nothing, manufactured a party out of raw ingredients.

  Everything that had happened that evening should have thrown Timothy for a loop. Shawn’s outrageous interference. Teel’s possessive attention toward me. Justin’s restlessness at a table full of grown-ups. Amy’s moodiness, her occasional tearfulness as she contemplated her uncertain future.

  But Timothy had risen to the occasion. He’d presented a dinner that would make any chef proud, as casually and as gracefully as if he were boiling a couple of eggs for breakfast. He made everyone—even me, as I struggled to prove that my Master Plan was in full force and effect—feel comfortable.

  Timothy’s restaurant business was like my acting—it was part of him. It was his power, his soul. I understood that in a rush of intuition, the same way that I’d understood his sorrow and frustration when he’d told me that he might need to shut down Garden Variety.

  And Shawn had just presented a way for Timothy to hold on to that power, to have a fighting chance to keep his dream intact. Shawn pushed. “Will you do it? I can give you the stage manager’s number tonight.”

  Timothy directed his mocha gaze at me. “Erin?”

  There were layers of questions embedded in those two syllables. Did I mind if he catered for the show? Would it matter, for whatever fledgling thing might be growing between us? What exactly was that unshaped thing? And did Teel have any rights to smother it, to smash it? What did I want? And why hadn’t I been in touch for the entire week since I’d seen Timothy in the hallway outside my new apartment?

  Dammit.

  I had a plan. A Master Plan. A Master Plan that I’d advanced that very afternoon, by acquiring Tennessee, by following through on this entire dinner.

  Women with Master Plans didn’t blush, did they, just because a man they had kissed one time might be working beside them? They certainly didn’t look at another man they’d kissed—twice—as if seeking permission, did they? They didn’t have to fight for breath, struggling against an attack of nervous butterflies that threatened to do all sorts of extremely unfortunate things to their very full stomachs. Right?

  Teel’s sapphire gaze was bemused. Timothy’s expression was expectant.

  For good measure, I glanced at Amy, who had actually raised a hand to her mouth, waiting to see what I would do. Shawn was staring at me, too, shooting me with little daggers of impatience, of disbelief that I wasn’t immediately leaping on the bandwagon for his perfect solution to our rehearsal woes.

  I swallowed hard. “Please, Timothy. Your catering is exactly what we need. We’d be lucky, if you chose to do it.”

  Shawn whooped. Amy sighed. Justin demanded that someone draw him a Soldierman, this one eating a star-shaped cookie.

  But Timothy only nodded, like a lion assessing some new domain.

  And Teel took the opportunity to plant his hands on the table, to let his sleeve ride up just enough to reveal the whorls of his tattoo. For one chilled second, I wondered if he would use Timothy against me, if he would find some way to force my fourth wish through Timothy’s catering.

  I avoided looking at the ink. Whatever happened from this day forward was going to be a result of my own thinking. My own decisions. My own desires. That was what I’d learned that afternoon in the Garden. That’s what it meant to be free. Alone. Independent. Strong.

  A woman with a Plan.

  Wasn’t it?

  I nodded again and made myself smile with more certainty than I felt. “We can’t wait to have you join us,” I said.

  CHAPTER 11

  TWO. THOSE PESKY BAD THINGS AGAIN, MARCHING ON toward their nearly inevitable three. If only I knew then what I know all too well now….

  Tennessee the Flag Day fish didn’t live to see the Fourth of July. I woke up one Thursday morning to find my poor little goldfish belly-up in his specially purchased glass bowl.

  I was devastated. I had done everything in my power to keep him safe from harm, to help him live a happy and healthy life. I had changed his water every third day, rapidly becoming an expert at using my little white net to catch him, to scoop him into a holding bowl (okay, a water-filled Pyrex measuring cup, but I didn’t use the cup for anything else), then transfer him back to his meticulously scrubbed home, newly filled with fresh tap water.

  The past week, though, he had worried me. Tennessee had lost the brilliant orange gleam he’d had when I carried him home from the street fair. His scales had taken on a dull coat of slime, and he seemed to hover at the top of his bowl too much, bobbing up and down.

  Hoping to avert what I feared was his increasingly imminent demise, I’d increased the frequency of our bowl-cleaning regimen, upping the water changes to every other day, then every day.

  And now, all that effort was for naught. Farewell, Tennessee. I hardly knew ye.

  As I scooped him out of the bowl for the last time, I felt a twinge of guilt. He’d been a good fish. A loyal fish. He’d made so few demands on me—a few flakes of food, a quart or two of fresh water. I sniffed back tears as I deposited him in the toilet bowl, wondering if a regimen of crumbled peace lily leaves would have made the difference. I’d never gotten around to trying.

  Okay. Maybe I wasn’t all that upset about losing a fish. But I was pretty bummed that I’d officially failed at the second phase of my Master Plan.

  I had just returned to the kitchen after flushing Tennessee when my cell phone rang. I swallowed hard and cleared my throat, but I still sounded weepy when I answered. “Hey, Ame,” I said, pulling her name from the caller ID.

  “What’s wrong?” Her sisterly radar zeroed in on my tears immediately.

  “Nothing,” I lied.

  “Nothing, my a—um, foot,” she said. Justin must have been within earshot.

  I unsuccessfully tried to swallow a sob. “Tennessee died!”

  “Tennessee? As in the state?”

  I sniffed. “As in the playwright. As in my goldfish.”

  “Goldfish! You didn’t tell me that you got a goldfish! The Master Plan is working!”

  I choked out a protest. “No, it isn’t! Not with Tennessee gone!”

  “What did you do to him?”

  “I didn’t do anything! I fed him every day, just like it said on the fish food, only a few flakes at a time! I changed his water every third day, then every day, toward the end!”

  “Jeez,” she said. “Did you buy stock in Arm & Hammer?”

  I rubbed at my eyes, wiping away my tears. “What do you mean?”

  “Baking soda. Arm & Hammer baking soda.”

  “Why would I buy baking soda for a fish?”

  “Not for the fish. For the water. Everyone knows that New York City water is soft. The pH is all wrong for goldfish. You need to add a little baking soda when you change the water, to keep the fish from getting slimy. From going belly-up.” Oh.

  “Don’t get upset by this little setback, though,” Amy said. “I’m really proud of you for proceduralizing the Master Plan. If you got the fish, that must mean the plant is doing really well, right? How many flowers does it have now?”

  I glanced at the dead peace lily on the counter. I’d kept it there as a sort of penance. As a denial that I was violating the central tenets of the Plan, moving forward before I’d perfected the past. I tried to figure out how many blooms it would have, if it had lived.

  “Erin?” Amy asked when my silence stretched out a bit too long. “You do still have the plant, don’t you?”

  “Yes!” That wasn’t a lie.

  “And it’s alive?”

  “Um, not exactly.”

  “I do not believe you!” So much for sisterly pride. “This isn’t like putting socks on an octopus! You had one simple plan, and you couldn’t even stick with it for, what, six weeks?” She was really angry. “I knew you were cheating, when you kissed Dr. Teel! Dr. Teel doesn’t count, you said, and stupid me, I went along
with that. But keeping a peace lily alive? Is that such a big deal? And a goldfish! Even Justin can keep a goldfish alive!”

  “Thanks, Amy,” I said in a tiny voice. “You’re really making me feel better.”

  She started to say something else but stopped herself before a new world war actually melted our telephones. Instead, after a very long pause, she opted for, “So? How was rehearsal yesterday? Did Martina ever get that dance combination down?”

  I made an agonized noise halfway between a scream and a sob. “I thought that she’d be better once we got into the theater, but she’s actually worse! You know, she has to sing now, and she has to work through the dance steps. Yesterday, she was driving me nuts—her voice is all warbly, that sort of reality-show sound, and no one else even seems to realize it! She doesn’t have an ounce of breath control, and she cannot sing and dance at the same time. By the end of rehearsal, I thought I was attending a meeting of the Four-Pack-a-Day Society, the way she coughs and sings and trips and shouts all at the same time.”

  “Wow,” Amy said when I finally ran down. “It went that well, huh?”

  I winced. “I guess I still have a few issues with Martina,” I said primly.

  “I’m really sorry,” Amy said, and she sounded sincere. For all her berating me about the Plan, she really was on my side. She always had been.

  I glanced at the clock on the oven. “I’ve got to go. We’re trying to rework a major number in the second act. For the twelfth time. Just kill me now.”

  “At least you’ve got Timothy’s food, for comfort.”

  Every day, I’d been reporting on the classy fare that Timothy brought to rehearsal. Shawn had been right, of course—Ken Durbin had jumped at the opportunity to have real catering on our set. Whatever the theater was paying Timothy wasn’t enough—Martina’s complaints about starvation had actually been reduced to no more than one per rehearsal.

  I had to admit, though, my personal satisfaction with Timothy’s catering had little to do with Martina finally shutting up. Sure, his food was good; often, it was the only real sustenance I got in a day. But the real advantage of having Timothy at the theater was that I got to see him—at least in the mornings, before he hurried back to Garden Variety to serve lunch, and then again for a couple of hours in the afternoon. Timothy was being run ragged; all of his usual prep time was being spent at the theater. But I had to assume that the producers were making it worth his while. Broadway pockets were notoriously deep where finicky stars were concerned.

  I loved watching Timothy work. I loved his feline energy, his scarcely controlled power as he moved behind his table, setting out treats, talking easily to everyone in the cast and crew.

  Talking easily, that was, to everyone but me. Each time I had a conversation with Timothy, I found myself more tongue-tied than the time before. Despite his easy smile, despite his welcoming shrug, I had trouble putting two words together. My mind did strange things, throwing up images of Dr. Teel’s sharp gaze, countering them with memories of Timothy’s easy grace that night in Garden Variety, when we’d all gotten together for dinner. I kept thinking about kissing Teel in front of Timothy, about how guilty I’d felt when I turned around, caught in the act.

  I wasn’t an idiot. I knew myself well enough to recognize the signs of a crush. But I absolutely could not have a crush on Timothy. I couldn’t have a crush on any man. Not until I’d completed the Master Plan. As stupid as I’d thought Amy’s plan might be when she first proposed it, I had come to believe that I truly needed it. I needed to carve out a new life for myself, free from the sort of idiotic sacrifices I’d made for Sam, and for all the other guys before him. Following it was the only way that I’d ever stop imitating the life of Laura Wingfield, wishing for the perfect man, afraid of living my actual life.

  Amy interrupted my daydreaming. “Speaking of Timothy, can you do me a favor?”

  “Um, sure,” I said, instantly wary.

  “Can you tell him I can’t interface until four o’clock this afternoon? Dr. Teel can’t get here until two.”

  “What?” There were so many things wrong with her request, starting with the totally obnoxious verb interface, that I didn’t know where to begin asking questions. “You’re meeting with Timothy?”

  “Didn’t I tell you? I needed a class project, creating a business plan for a company in the service sector. I asked Timothy if I could do one for Garden Variety.”

  “When did that happen?” Amy and I talked every single day. I couldn’t believe she hadn’t mentioned it before.

  “About a week ago? Maybe two? A couple of days after we all had dinner at the restaurant.”

  “Amy, you were keeping it a secret!”

  “Sort of like you, not telling me about your poor, departed peace lily?”

  Touché.

  I had no choice but to go back on the offensive. “And what do you mean, ‘Dr. Teel can’t get here until two’? Why is he coming over there at all?” My genie had absolutely no reason to be hanging around my sister.

  “He’s just going to keep an eye on Justin while I go meet with Timothy.”

  “He can’t!” I practically shouted. Teel was a genie! He was absolutely irresponsible! He couldn’t be trusted with my nephew!

  Of course, I couldn’t say any of that out loud. As far as Amy was concerned, Teel was a brilliant medical doctor who had not only served a key role in saving Justin’s life but was now instrumental in bringing my nephew’s behavioral problems under control. “Seriously,” I said, struggling to muster my arguments. “Doesn’t he have to be on call or something?”

  “He said he could handle it. Justin loves having him around. I think it’s good for him to spend time with a man. You know, until Derek gets back.”

  I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t trust my genie, not as a babysitter. I’d seen him dressed up as a buxom cheerleader, as a leather-bound party boy—not exactly ideal models for child-care providers. Besides, I didn’t want Justin to get too dependent on him. At some point, I was going to make my fourth wish, and Teel would be off to his Garden. Justin would be left high and dry, victim of yet another man who disappeared from his life.

  Of course, I knew what Teel would say if I challenged him. He’d tell me that he needed to do something to fill the time between my wishes. A genie had to keep himself busy somehow….

  And I knew what Amy would say, if I challenged her. She’d accuse me of getting emotionally involved with Dr. Teel. Of putting way too much importance on what he did in his spare time.

  Well, the guy could kiss like no one I’d ever met. But that wasn’t my problem with him as a babysitter. That wasn’t why I thought he was dangerous.

  I knew better than to protest more, though. Amy was my big sister. She’d never listen to my complaints, especially when I couldn’t back them up with cold, hard facts. I sighed and grabbed my purse, snagging my keys so that I could rush out the door. “Look, I’d love to fight with you about this, but I really do have to get to rehearsal.”

  “Fine. You’ll tell Timothy, though?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll tell him.” We said our goodbyes, and I dumped my phone into my tote bag. I was still annoyed when I tugged open my apartment door. My mood was definitely not helped when I almost tripped over a cat.

  “What the—” I exclaimed.

  Three. I’m telling you right now, my life would end with the tagline “happily ever after” if I could just stop those bad things from tripling up on me.

  The universe was laughing, and I was the butt of the joke. Have you heard the one about the woman whose Master Plan involved a plant, a goldfish and a cat?

  The animal on my doorstep wove herself between my ankles. She was purring so loudly, I could hear her without bending down. She was a tiny calico, mostly white, with patches of orange and black on her face and chest. As I stared, she arched her butt high into the air, shaking her tail back and forth and yowling as if all the demons in hell were chasing her.

  Dani
Thompson’s door flew open across the hall. “Tabitha!” she scolded. “How did you get out here?”

  The cat looked up at her and shook her hindquarters again. This time, her howl sounded like she was being skinned alive.

  “What’s wrong with her?” I asked, trying to step away from the poor thing. Tabitha merely flowed between my ankles again, rubbing hard against my legs.

  “She’s in heat,” Dani said grimly.

  “Oh!” Tabitha confirmed the news with another unearthly cry. “Where did you get her? I’ve never, um, heard her before.”

  “We found her on a guerilla raid last week, over by the Jefferson Market library. She must have sneaked out of my place just now, when I was carrying in my groceries.” Dani clicked her tongue and picked up the animal. Tabitha immediately started to butt her head against Dani’s chin, making my neighbor laugh. “The poor thing was soaking wet, and she was hungry enough to chew on my handbag. I brought her home with me because Lorraine Feingold is allergic to cats, and no one else lives in a building where they can have pets.” She shook her head and sighed. “I was hoping I could get her through this heat before bringing her down to the shelter.”

  As if Tabitha could understand every word that Dani said, the animal let out another incredible shout. I shook my head a little, trying to clear the ringing in my ears. “Shelter? Won’t she quiet down after she’s through being in heat?”

  Dani grimaced. “I don’t have to give her up because of the noise. She was quiet as a mouse, the first couple of days. No, it’s the guerilla supplies. I can’t trust her near the compost box for a minute, and she’s already chewed up half my fall seedlings. I’m worried she’ll get into something that’s poisonous for her.”

  “Poor thing,” I said. “She doesn’t know any better.” Without thinking, I reached out to take her from Dani. She melted into my arms, flowing across my chest like a living blanket. If possible, her purring ratcheted even louder.

  Dani pounced on the opportunity. “Will you take her?”

  “I can’t!” I protested automatically.